An heated discussion recently went viral across online platforms, after a user posed the question to women: which would you prefer be lost in the woods alongside a male or with a bear? Similar to the best thought experiments, it revealed wildly different worldviews and experiences, highlighted divides among genders, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it extensively. There was also the predictable coda in which some males took to the internet to tell females how stupid they were to select the bear and went on to describe the consequences they deserved for that choice. This at least enabled the women who were uncertain over their choice to make it with renewed assurance.
Portraying the Scenario
To Cook a Bear skillfully dramatises this nifty small premise. This six-episode drama is based from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated in 2020 for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family as they come to begin a new ministry in Kengis, a remote village in Sweden’s north, during the mid-19th century. Within a community with few pleasures, not one of the inhabitants particularly warm to his strict approach to drinking and dancing, yet it is his defense of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the preacher’s foster child the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in societal fairness and equal rights that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis local authorities.
The Opposing Forces
Soon in cahoots opposing him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (the performer), the intimidating factory proprietor Madam Sjödahl (the actress), observed initially firing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation as he remains babbling upon seeing of his pulped hand, and all others who profit from a populace easily swayed for a few bottles of liquor provided by the creepy store owner the merchant Lindmark (the actor). However, to be fair, Lindmark’s creepiness diminishes once itinerant painter the artist Beronius arrives in the story (Simon J Berger, providing a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – like the pastor himself – only a little more being stereotypes, they still serve as potent archetypes.
Plot Progression
With the seeds of tension planted, the moment arrives to get down with the storyline. The maid employed by the doctor, the character Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), accordingly vanishes in the forest. Signs of her escape and animal scratches on a tree are found yet she remains nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties regarding a human-devouring bear prowling the woodland spread, but the pastor has another theory that he and Jussi set out to prove.
An Odd Beast
This Bear Drama is a slightly odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of the desolation that allows distrust and prejudice and grim legends thrive from the native legend that animals can be controlled or possessed by the spirits of men. It avoids idealising the tough existence led by the residents, where brutality, be it from the wild or people, lurks constantly on the edges, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve more than ciphers – or perhaps, while the conflicts amid fairness and revenge, logic and religion, virtue and wickedness escalate, emblematic figures in a fable – preventing the entire production truly coming to life.
Stylistic Shifts
And then, exist numerous stylistically clashing instances in which the pastor’s ability to discover clues and discern Hilda’s fate becomes nearly laughable. He stands looking at broken milk pots and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot the English sleuth – alongside Jussi a particularly unfortunate Hastings-cum-Watson (neither of whom were required to taste a blend of blood spatter and the boss’s spit to confirm that indeed, it was definitely coagulated blood on the site), prior to declaring his newest conclusion and pulling a body from a bog.
Clashing Agendas
The local leaders are determined demonstrating that the maid met her end by an animal, maybe to protect the peace, or possibly to shield one of their own. The clergyman is bent on establishing the opposite, and the evidence so quickly stacks up in his favour that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. In its finest moments, To Cook a Bear evokes memories of the adaptation some years back of the author’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing attractions and fears offered by science and belief. At its worst, it’s more like Law & Order: Special Ursine Unit. Nevertheless, it appears to provide the response to that debated question: “Females, choose the animal.”
To Cook a Bear is on Disney+ now.
